Never thought it would happen to me

If being a parent has taught me anything it would have to be compassion. Compassion for children, compassion for my husband and compassion for other moms. Before I had my first child I would hear mom horror stories of how their child sprayed baby powder all over the bedroom or pulled off their diaper and smeared poop on the walls. “How could this happen!?” I wondered to myself. Aren’t these moms paying attention? After I had my first child I swore those things would never happen to me. I will admit I was a bit ‘judgey’ in my early parenting years. These stories HAD to have been exaggerated, right?

Let me share three things I never thought would happen that have happened:

Little Man was about 9 months and getting very wriggly on the diaper changing station. He was especially stinky one afternoon so I laid him up there for a change. His diaper was undone and I was holding his feet with one hand while grabbing a wipe with the other. Before I knew what happened he reached down, grabbed the edge of his diaper, and pulled it out from under him flinging it around like a flag. Poop flew into the air and before I could even scream he had flung the soiled diaper against the wall. I watched in horror as it slid down the back of the diaper changing station and onto the carpet leaving a trail of brown poop in its wake. I don’t even remember what I did next. I just couldn’t believe that it had happened! It’s not like this happened while in his crib or while I wasn’t paying attention. I was right there and STILL couldn’t do anything to stop it! I now have a poop story!

Little Man soaking hand after an unfortunate run in with a cactus

Fast forward to 20 months. We were having a dinner party that evening and I was trying to keep Little Man occupied until my husband got home from work. We were in the back yard and I was filling the dogs’ water bowl. Little Man came walking up to me rubbing his hand on his head. My first thought was that he had bumped his head, but upon further inspection I saw his entire hand was covered with cactus needles! And not just any cactus needles, the fuzzy flesh colored kind that are so small and thin they are almost impossible to see and even more impossible to get out. He had found the ONE small cactus we have in our yard, which he had never paid attention to before, and grabbed it. I immediately freaked, which caused him to freak, and ran inside. He sat crying on the kitchen counter with me trying to tweeze out as many needles as I could grab while simultaneously googling tips on how to get cactus needles out of skin. Thankfully our dinner guests were very understanding and provided a great distraction for Little Man for the rest of the evening.

For those of you interested the best option was soaking his hand in warm water for 30 minutes and then using duct tape over his fingers to try and pull out the remaining needles.

The last thing I swore I would never let happen happened just after Little Man turned two. It was a Saturday morning and my husband and I were sitting in the living room watching a cartoon. You would think this cartoon would have been for Little Man and you would be wrong. It was my husband’s cartoon (he’s a bit of a Batman fan). Little Man was sitting on the floor drawing in his coloring book. I began to get engrossed in the show and the next time I look over Little Man has a bright red crayon in his hand and is drawing huge circles on the wall. Both my husband and I scream, “NO!!!!!” which again was not the best response. We scared him so bad that he began crying inconsolably and I, yet again, began googling ways to get crayon off of flat paint.

So what mom ‘horror’ stories do you have to share? I promise I won’t judge. : )

Share this:

Like this:

Kate Wilkinson

Kate Wilkinson is a wife to an amazing man who loves to cook (yes she knows she’s lucky!) and is blessed to be a stay at home mom to her two very active boys, Little Man and Punkin. Come join her adventure to maintain sanity while she juggles VERY energetic boys, housework that never seems to end, and the occasional date night that isn’t thwarted by falling asleep in the movie theatre. When mommy brain allows Kate blogs at RetroModernMom.com about family, faith and the funny things in between. It may be hard living in LA but she’s a modern mom doing it the old-fashioned way.

8 Responses to Never thought it would happen to me

Oh I had a Mom moment when we let our daughter stand up in the target cart when she was just about 18 months old. It was fine Dad was carefully standing with one hand on her the entire time… well until he pulled the cart closer to the end of the counter to begin loading it and she was reaching for my wallet on the the little check writing stand they use to have…so the cart went one way and she went the other way and she fell out of the cart right on to her head!!

I thought blood was going to be everywhere. About six Target employees rushed over, everything was in slooooooow motion. I could hear people gasping and I was horrified. There was no blood put the biggest goose egg started to immediately form right on her forehead. It was awful.

I left my (then) 2 year old son alone in his bedroom for just a few minutes while I was using the restroom (literally right in the next room). During that time, he decided to get into the vasoline jar on the changing table shelf and proceeded to eat the vasoline. I called Poison Control who assured me that he would be okay but that his bowel movements might be a little ‘odd’ for awhile…

Well, my older girl (almost 2) has rolled off a bed (at 5 months old), pulled an iron-ish fireplace shield down over her, backwards (at 14 months old) and konked her head on walls, tables, chairs and her own crib more times than I can count…. ALL WHILE I’VE BEEN LITERALLY INCHES AWAY FROM HER, watching the shenanigans go down before my eyes. If I wasn’t married to a pediatric surgeon who assures me every time that “she’s ok… kids do this”, I’d have been best friends with our local ER by now. That said, I watch her more and more like a hawk now…. out of pure fear that my luck is running out.

Oh man everytime you hear that head thunk on the ground does t your heart just stop!? I actually did end taking Little man to the ER once since he threw up afterwards. They did a cats can and everything but of course he was just fine. I, on the other hand was a wreck! Gla to know I am not alone in my paranoia.